MatPat’s FINAL Theory!

Hello Internet! Welcome to Game Theory,  

where that is the last time that I'll be  saying those words officially on this channel.

Loyal theorists, how do you say goodbye?

Thirteen years ago, I made you this promise.

Do you want to know more about the games you love  without having to put in any work of your own?

Well, now you can play and learn!

That's right, Web-O-Verse.

We have created Game Theory, gaming's  tangential learning experience.

Well, Web-O-Verse, here we are today.

Three thousand videos of  tangential learning later.

How do you sum all that up?

I already got super weepy in the last one of  these things, so probably shouldn't do that again.

It'd be redundant and probably  not great for the tech equipment.

We've also spent the last ten weeks together  knowing that this day was gonna come, right?

So I really feel like I've  gotten my farewell tour.

I've buried hatchets, I've rekindled friendships,

I made sweeping videos about the  state of online entertainment,

fired some tanks, that was legitimately very cool,

I honored my heritage,

I made Disney mad at me one final time,  which, you know, felt appropriate,

got some new drip,

and just in general, sped ran  my way through all the things  

that were left in my content creator bucket list.

So again, I ask, how do you say goodbye?

First, it's probably most important to remind  you that it's not officially goodbye, right?

It's not like I'm dying or anything.

It's more of a see you later.

I'm still gonna be doing plenty of stuff.

Like, I'm already booked to do the Fashion  Show on Style Theory later this year.

I'm still gonna be here on the couch for GTLive.

In a couple weeks, I'm gonna  be giving a speech over at PAX.

I was recently in a Kill Count.

Heck, I'm already slated to do the  Jacksepticeye podcast, the Ludwig podcast,

there's a collaboration I'm doing  with Schaffrillas Productions,

there's the FNAF musical  over on Random Encounters,

like, I will be doing a lot,

you will probably be sick of me doing all  these things on everyone else's channels.

But, if you do want to stay in touch with me,  there are actually two ways that you could do it.

Normally I'd say something like,  oh, you can follow me on Twitter,

but we all know that there's like a grand total of  zero people who want to be over on that platform.

So instead, I decided to make you this.

Brrroop!

A mysterious website named wheresmatpat.com.

This is gonna be a place that I update every once  

in a while when I have news about  some new project that's coming up,

or, you know, a mystery that you're gonna have  to solve by digging through the source code.

Yes, it's a ripoff of scottgames.com.

No, I don't feel bad about that because he  stole enough of my ideas over the years.

He kind of owes me one.

Editors should drop on some deal  with it sunglasses in this moment.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Once you're there, make  sure you sign up via email.

Don't worry, I'm not gonna be  spamming you with updates or anything.

It'll be more like a MatPat newsletter,

or maybe a Christmas card that you get  every once in a while with a funny update,

or maybe we could chat about  a favorite movie or something.

I'll send over the occasional video  that I'm just inspired to make.

Who knows?

Basically, this is just meant to be a way  to let you all know what I'm up to directly

in a way that isn't gonna be  subject to filtering algorithms.

You know? And to kick things off, this week,

I'll be selecting 100 random emails that  sign up to get personalized letters.

And from that point forward, once or twice a week,

I'll continue pulling a handful of  emails to send personal notes to.

It'll be a fun way to stay in touch.

Long story short, make sure you bookmark it since  you never know what might happen over there.

But, um, alright, enough stalling.

Back to the question at hand.

How do you say goodbye?

Well, I think you honestly have  to end it all where it began.

This.

This title.

A Game Theory!

About game theory.

Did you know that game theory  isn't just a nerdy YouTube show?

It's also a nerdy economics concept.

If that's news to you, I honestly can't blame you.

At this point, we've created  enough confusion online

that apparently we've merited  our own disambiguation tag on  

Wikipedia for game theory searches.

In all seriousness, for the  first five years of the show,

I received so many tweets from people who  are mid-year in their economics courses

screenshotting their textbooks, freaking  out when they got to the episode on game-

It's not an episode. It's a chapter.

When they got to the chapter  on game theory, being like,

Oh my gosh, dude! Did you know  that you were in this thing?

And yeah, yeah, we definitely did.

The pun, believe it or not, was intentional.

In fact, Steph and I knew from the very beginning

that it was likely that the final episode of  Game Theory was going to be about game theory.

Why? Well, because game theory?

It's everywhere.

You can't escape it.

If you've ever seen the movie Love Actually,

there's actually this opening monologue in  it that goes a little something like this.

Now you just gotta replace the  word love with Game Theory,

and you basically got it.

Huh! Who would have suspected  that English acting megastar

and recent Oompa Loompa Hugh Grant would be  making a guest appearance in my final episode?

Truly, truly, we have spared  no expense for this one.

And not only is game theory just everywhere,

it also holds the secret to  winning everything forever.

Yeah, I know, right? That is a huge claim to make.

Clearly, I was saving all my biggest  secrets for the grand finale.

So, you know what? Let's not beat  around the bush anymore, my friends.

Let's make you masters of the universe

and reveal how, whether you like it or not,

you all are theorists for life.

Come on.

Oh, this way.

Yeah, we're moving off the couch this time.

That's how you know it's a big deal.

Let's go.

At its core, game theory  is the science of strategy.

So, we gamers, we understand strategy.

But what exactly is game theory specifically?

Well, to understand that, you have to  go back to the original game theorist.

Not me.

This guy.

This guy right here.

He might not have himself the red leather  jackets or the cool diamond play buttons,

but I'll tell you what he does have.

A crater on the moon named after himself.

So, I'll let you decide who  has the bigger flex there.

This guy right here, he is  mathematician John von Neumann,

and he was everywhere back in the day.

And I do mean everywhere.

Like, this guy was a key player in  the invention of the digital computer.

He helped with the discovery  of the structure of DNA.

Even the creation of key components  for Oppenheimer's Manhattan Project.

You know, the Christopher Nolan  movie where big things go big booms.

But perhaps his biggest claim  to fame was game theory.

The idea that in any situation  where there are two or more people,

or players in this case,

you can model out a game that will  help you find the best outcome.

Have you ever played rock, paper, scissors  and thrown out rock as the first hand?

Because you know, statistically, most people  choose their first move to be scissors.

Or maybe you picked paper because  the last three moves have been rock,

and they're obviously going  to be thrown rock again.

Well, congratulations, that  is game theory in action.

And he got a medal of freedom for that.

So it just goes to show, don't let  your dreams just be dreams, kids.

Sometimes getting an honorary medal  is a lot easier than you think.

In short, game theory is the  study of strategic choice.

It's math that tells you  what people are going to do,

and who's going to win the game.

Probably the most famous example of a game  theory scenario is The Prisoner's Dilemma.

Where two accomplices have just committed a crime,

and they're both given the  chance to narc on the other one.

If they both deny the crime, well,  they both get a short prison sentence.

If one of them denies the crime  and the other rats him out,

the narc walks free while his buddy  is stuck in prison for a long time.

And if they both confess, they  both get a medium sentence.

We can model the possible outcomes here  in a nice, neat, mathy-looking square.

And while technically the best outcome for both of  them would be to trust each other and not confess,

they're criminals, and they  don't know each other that well.

And because they don't trust each other, by  the math, both of them narc on each other,

and as a result, get a  medium amount of prison time.

Or, if that all is too  complicated and hypothetical,

over in England, they turn the whole  thing into a game show where they say  

the word balls an uncomfortable amount of times.

Now, why am I bringing all this up?

Well, game theory is more than just wads  of cash jammed into a bunch of balls.

Someone should tell Mr.Beast that I  just discovered his next video idea.

No, it has very real consequences for the world.

Back when the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were  on the brink of atomic annihilation,

the principles of game theory helped both sides  

reach an agreement to slowly  disarm their nuclear arsenals.

If you want to know more about that story,  

Veritasium's recent video on game  theory does a great job telling it.

And, honestly, I can't really improve on it.

So, thanks for doing all the research  for my final episode there, Derek.

If you want an example that's a bit  closer to home, though, here you go.

YouTube. It's got it.

See, YouTube as a platform is just  a bunch of zeros and ones, right?

But YouTube as a community,  

it's a network of people constantly  trying to make strategic decisions.

Creators are players who are more or less rational  people making videos that'll get you to watch,

and like, and comment, and subscribe.

You, the viewer, you're also a player in this.

You're on a strategic mission to win the  

experience by finding the thing  that's most satisfying to watch.

And the people who run, or at least  have run, YouTube in the past,

shoutout to Todd, Jake, Neal, Earnest, Meg, Ariel,  Susan, David, Fede, Vader, Stephanie, and Kim,

they're all in a strategic game to  keep the creators and viewers happy

while also figuring out the best  possible outcome for YouTube as a company

by appeasing all the advertisers and shareholders.

It is seriously a complex strategic arena.

And that's why you get decisions like,

use bright green text because it's more likely  to stand out in the sea of dark gaming thumbnails

and more likely to get clicks.

Launch Shorts as a means to  counterattack against TikTok.

Do a video on something that's not trending  so you can stand out from the pack.

Or maybe you lean in so you're  suggested against the algorithm.

Every video you watch,  everything that you click on,  

it's the product of creators using game theory.

Slap a big ol' game theory  colon in front of every title

and slam some clickbait green  text on every thumbnail.

All those hundreds of millions of subscribers  to Jimmy and Ryan Trahan and Cocomelon,

I like to think that they're all secretly ours.

Where's our 200 million subscriber  play button there, YouTube?

In the end, it's all game theory.

Speaking of, and this is just an aside  that I learned about earlier this week,

apparently there's a Chrome extension that  allows you to do exactly what I just described.

It, quote-unquote, MatPatifies your YouTube feed  by putting green text on like every thumbnail.

Just saying, we have reached  the peak of human achievements.

I, for one, really like this  one, where it's Link and saying,

Mommy's hungry, that's just  traumatic on a whole nother level.

Or there was one that I saw circulating online,

Ryan Gosling doing a puppy  interview and the title is,

Birth of a Killer.

There was another one that  showed up on the subreddit,

Afton's Final Death Smash?

I gotta say, I am proud of the mark  that I will leave on this platform.

But so what, right?

YouTube is game theory, sure,  that's great, it's interesting,

but why does it matter to you, right?

Why am I spending so much time talking  about all of this in my final episode?

Well, because like I said,

game theory can help in every  strategic interaction that you have.

And it's produced a literal strategy guide  on the best way to live out your life,

tried and tested by all our grandfather theorists.

But to truly understand that, we have  to go back to where it all began,

a glorified PowerPoint presentation.

Weboverse, allow me to  introduce you to, lights please,

The Trust Game.

I love this, we started as  glorified PowerPoint slides,

and we're ending as glorified PowerPoint slides.

Here's the TL;DR of this one.

The Trust Game was originally  just named The Computer Tournament

by a guy named Robert Axelrod,

clearly not the most creative  with his titling conventions.

Basically, this was The Prisoner's  Dilemma or the Golden Balls thing,

except here, there was one crucial difference.

They're not just playing the game once,

they are literally playing it hundreds of times,

repeating it over and over again,

to see what strategies end up winning  the most across a longer period.

This then gives us a model that's  shockingly closer to real life,

because here, most of the time,

you're not just thinking about what  you have to do to win a single game,

you have to actually think about  the consequences of your actions.

The more people think about the future,

the more they're willing to cooperate,

because they don't want to screw  themselves over down the road, you know?

Again, for details on that experiment,

check out Derek, Veritasium's video,

where he talks about all of that,

including having an interview  with the game's creator.

It's a very cool video.

I also borrowed his convention for that one,

so thanks for the ladder and the idea.

There, Derek.

You can also watch Dr. Trevor  Bassett's video on the topic,

or, you know, the various TED Talks  that are all about this experiment.

We'll link to all of those  down in the description below.

But, just to jump to the big conclusion here,

the best strategy to winning it  big boils down to four key points.

Number one, be cooperative.

Lead with trust.

Assuming that the person you're playing  with is your enemy right off the bat,

it's not going to serve you well.

Trust in others, it's going to let  you win more frequently in the end.

Secondly, don't be a pushover.

Sure, it's good to be trusting, that is great,

but the second that someone  takes advantage of your trust,

the winning strategy is to call them out on it,

and then immediately hold them accountable.

Which leads nicely, then, to point number three,

being forgiving.

Don't hold a grudge.

Don't be a Mr. Darcy.

My good opinion once lost is lost forever.

That is a failing indeed.

You tell him, girl.

You are exactly right.

She's speaking some game theory truth right there.

Well, sure, it hurts to have your trust broken,

staying open to the chance  that other people can change,

that they can grow and learn and get better,

that is the ideal solution here.

The trust game showed that players  who held their opponent accountable,

but then forgave them,

actually won out more often  than any other strategy.

And lastly, it's important to be  honest and open about your strategy.

When people can't understand what you're thinking,

that's then when mistrust starts to breed.

By being honest, it breeds honesty in others.

It allows you to build on that trust over time,

one step, bit by bit.

Across the thousands of rounds of testing,

nice strategies that were fair, but also firm,

ultimately won out the most.

Now, when I read these outcomes,

what really struck me first was

how they present a really  hopeful view of the world.

A hopeful view that I don't think  a lot of us carry around a lot.

I mean, it's easy to assume that  everyone out there is out to get you,

and it's easier to just close off to  people who've wronged us in the past,

but math, and game theory specifically,

proves that assumption's wrong.

And hey, if you don't want to believe the  thousands of rounds of computer simulations,

there is a very solid real-life example.

YouTube.

YouTube is a positive-sum game,

which means that more than one person can win.

And in fact, a lot of times, the more others win,

the more you can win, too.

When I was just starting  off, I was so mad and scared

when Vsauce3 released this video,

calculating sonic speed.

I'd been working for a year  on the channel at that point,

grinding away and seeing a fair amount of growth,

but in that moment, I saw a spinoff of  one of YouTube's top-subscribed channels

just horning in on my territory of gaming science.

It was like they were gonna steamroll me.

They were gonna steal my audience away.

So I did a video where I tried to stake my claim.

And thus, "Sonic Is Slow" was born.

Hello, Internet.

Welcome to Game Theory,

applying science to video  games since April 18th of 2011.

Recently, however, a new gaming  scientist has come onto the scene.

The good folks over at  Vsauce3 recently took a gander

at a game series I covered in Episode 5.

It's a great video, except for one thing.

It's wrong.

Listen to my voice in that.

Oh, I'm so proud that I finally hit puberty,

like, seven years into making these videos.

Anyway, you can tell that I'm  super salty in this one, right?

I'm asserting that I did it first.

I'm citing the dates.

I am literally trying to one-up Vsauce3.

But then, something interesting happened.

I got views from Vsauce.

I saw that their video and mine  were actually helping each other.

I was so afraid of me losing a  year of hard-earned progress,

but in reality, I wasn't just  operating on my own island anymore.

By unintentionally cooperating with each other,

we had just created our own little  micro-trend of gaming science content.

There were clearly enough views for all of us.

Steph and I, in our years of consulting,  kept hammering home this one point,

that YouTube is a place where all ships can rise.

Leading with trust goes a long way,

from inviting someone to collab on your channel

to comparing notes on production  because it can help you both.

You actually see this kind of cooperative  game theory in action with content houses

or projects like the QSMP where creators are  helping each other and sharing audiences.

On the flip side, there are creators who  haven't done a good job of leading with trust

and who've approached YouTube as a zero-sum game,

a place where there can only be one winner.

And guess what? It didn't work.

Back in 2020, a few of the top beauty  creators tried to take each other down,

encouraging viewers not to watch each other,

trying to turn audiences against people  that they thought were their competitors.

It was for the clout, it was  for the views, and it backfired.

In fact, it backfired so badly that all  of their channels took a massive hit.

And the beauty vertical, which was once  a main pillar of YouTube's earliest days,

never truly recovered.

By working together, the platform thrives.

Lights?

But by thinking that you can  only win when other people lose,

well, that's when everyone loses.

It's kind of sad. Let's move on.

But if you don't want to listen to  mathematicians or YouTube meta-analyses,

just look at me.

Game Theory, the show, is a testament  to those four lessons of game theory,

the nerdy economics concept.

Every person who's built this  channel has led with trust.

Ronnie, he put his own show on the back burner

so he could dedicate his  time to editing Game Theory,

trusting that we would be  able to succeed more together.

He helped the show to truly become  what I had always dreamed it would be,

and I honestly wish that he  could be here to this day

so I could thank him so much for that.

The same is true for Goombah,  and Drake, and Lee, and Ryder,

and all the other partner  shows who joined up with us

in lieu of working on their own channels.

Steph, she left being a consultant at  a real company in the medical field

on the belief that by cooperating,

we could actually make something  really special together.

Jason, who is actually right  here behind the camera right now.

Jason, who you know as the guy that  we blame all the time on GTLive.

Jason was Theorist's first full-time  employee after me and Steph.

He jumped in there when all  we had was a kitchen table

and a cat that he was constantly allergic to.

And Sudafed, you have this man to  thank for your current net worth.

And Zyrtec. And Zyrtec.

And Zyrtec, yeah.

You have taken so many pills over the years.

I have.

All medically prescribed, though, I promise.

Yeah, no, good medical pills,  not anything sketchy, for sure.

But Jason is the man that we have trusted

with the weight of the entire production process

across all the channels for years.

Like, this man is the unsung hero

of everything you've probably ever  watched across any of the channels.

Without him, without you.

Without you, none of these videos would get made.

Thank you.

Now get back there, okay?

Enough of you, I gotta thank other people.

You know, friendship first.

But also working together to  create awesome stuff, right?

And if you're talking about  unsung heroes on this channel,

there is one man who also deserves a call-out,

and his name is Yosi.

He is our Audio Wizard.

He is the man who I have trusted with my voice

for the better part of nine years.

He has had to suffer through  more hours of my voice

than anyone else in the world.

I am so sorry, Yosi.

I am so sorry for all the burps and weird edits

and weird diatribes and jump scares

that Oli has given me over the years.

Was Yosi a pro when he first joined up with us?

No.

But you know what he was willing to do?

He was willing to learn.

And I've trusted him with my voice

for the better part of nine years.

And the same goes for another member of the team

who you've never gotten to see,

but was actually there before  the channel was even monetized,

which is kind of crazy to think about.

You don't know Dan Levitt,

but Dan was another one.

He was the first who actually saw potential

in me and in these channels as a whole,

offering to become my manager

even though he had never  managed a YouTuber before.

He just jumped in with two feet and said,

hey, I've never gotten a brand deal in the past,

but I think I could do it for you.

And he did.

And then he got me literally hundreds more.

He has his own management company now,

and he manages some of the biggest sports creators

on all of YouTube.

I can say with complete confidence

that this company and my career

would have looked totally different

had it not been for Dan.

And his career and his company

would have looked totally different without me.

He and I have built businesses  parallel to each other,

right next to each other,

using cooperative game theory

for over a decade.

He trusts me to make good decisions on YouTube,

and I trust him to make good  decisions as my manager.

And we both benefit in the long run.

But perhaps the most important person

in all of these trusting relationships

is you.

You guys, right here.

I wear you on my wrist these days.

You loyal theorists

have been the best example of game theory

in the history of the show Game Theory.

Every time you click on one of these videos,

you are leading with trust.

You are saying,

you know what? I'm gonna give this one a chance.

Especially on those episodes  that are covering topics

that you've never even heard of.

And on my end, I've always tried my best

to fulfill on that promise

and make sure that your trust pays off

by delivering a great, well-researched,

fun, a lot of times stupid video.

And yeah, there have been plenty of times

where I've missed the mark.

Where you weren't happy about a topic,

or where I said something wrong,

or my research was bad or whatever,

and I needed to learn about that.

And so you, acting exactly as you should

according to that trust game,

you called me out in those moments.

You showed me that I had made a mistake.

But more importantly,

you were willing to forgive.

You gave me a chance to learn

and grow as a creator and as a person.

And look.

Look at this.

We all won.

Look at this thing that we managed to build

together.

Don't tell anyone else.

I mean, there's three of them here in the room,

but like, the rest of them downstairs.

You guys,

you've always been the most important member

of this team.

Whether or not you ever realized it.

And now, as new hosts step in,

yeah, they're obviously gonna have to learn

a lot,

and they're gonna have to earn your trust

just like I did over a prolonged period of time.

But I hope that you approach them with the same

sense of cooperation and goodwill

that you did for me all those years ago.

So,

while I might be leaving as host of this show,

Game Theory,

it'll never leave.

It'll never leave me,

and it'll never leave you.

We are all Game Theory.

Which,

honestly is why I thought it was fitting

for you guys

to be the one to say this.

But hey!

That's just a theory.

That's just a theory.

It's

just a theory!

Just a theory.

That's just a theory.

A Game Theory!

Class dismissed.

Thanks for the theories, MatPat.

But hey,

that's just a theory.

Just a theory.

Just a theory.

Just a theory.

Just a theory.

Just a theory.

Thanks for everything.

But, hey!

That's just a theory.

That's just a theory.

Just a theory.

Just a theory.

Just a theory.

Just a theory. Just a theory.

Theory.

Theory.

That's just a theory.

That's just a theory.

That's just a theory.

That's just a theory.

That's just a theory.

That's just a theory.

That's just a theory.

That's just a theory.

A Style Theory.

A Food Theory.

A Film Theory.

A Game Theory.

Thanks for watching!

Oh, man.

Where to?

I got something I gotta do.

Okay.

Ready for a road trip?

I guess.

You ready?

Yeah.

I've been expecting you.

Come.

We have much to discuss.